Council October 19

Hello folks! My name is Zoë Brimacombe. I am your new Member-at-Large, and therefore the new writer of this live blog. Hurray!

It’s 10:14am and Haritha Popuri is clarifying some details about the speaker’s list, amendments, how and when to interrupt people, postponing motions, recesses.

10:18am: the meeting is called to order and we recognize we are on unceded Mi’kmaq territory.

Amendments to the agenda! Turns out there is no February 30th. It is moved and seconded that the report on the Environmental Affairs committee be postponed to the next council meeting. We vote and the motion passes.

Michaela Sam sends her regrets through Jacob Baker-Kretzmar.

10:22am: Reports from the councillors

Aidan McNally: Has been working on the financial planning task force document.

Eleanor Hornbeck: Disappointed in the timeline. It was a constant battle this summer to keep the task force on task and on time. This week has been the first real instance of making the document accessible to the students. This document is not just about the document: it is the point around which to have a conversation. This has been a rewarding experience.

Jess: Money-related things! Working with societies. 90% of peer mentors are matched up, but some people are inaccessible (do not have their emails on file).

Hannah Yaffe: Got re-elected! Went to a group called “Let’s Talk Science” at Dal. Will be working with them this year. Goal is to meet more first year science students and to get the report out.

10:32am: Exec reports!

Michaela Sam: Not present, unfortunately, because she is currently in Ottawa representing Local 11 at the CFS National General Meeting. Jacob reads her report aloud. It is an awesome report. Michaela is awesome. Did you know this is the first council meeting she has ever missed? She has been elected as the chairperson of the provincial component of the CFS!

Chief returning officer is AWESOME!

“Wall of Women” project is in the works to get more pictures of women in the Wardroom. Everyone is super stoked. We have a lot to do to challenge sexism on campus.

Long Term Strategic Financial Planning Task Force: Eleanor and Michaela are on this. It has been frustrating, given the style of collaboration used that did not always allow for informed consent. They recommended that the style of meetings change, as they are currently problematic. The report is now out.

Canadian Federation of Students General Meeting: Will report more in the future, but very excited to bring ideas and discussion back to King’s!

Some athletics students didn’t know they needed to bring their King’s card to get in to the Wardroom. We have created a temporary solution, but hopefully everyone will be bringing their cards soon!

Societies: Lots of meetings. People keep coming in and out of the office. We will have 36 societies if the ones in this meeting get approved. A training session was run for societies, which was very successful and helpful. Newly ratified societies will need to get up to date on this as well.

Board of Governors meeting: So cool that students came! Made an awesome 50 minute speech. The board meeting was put in the context of a University full of students.

Property, Grounds, and Safety Committee: President’s lodge: been under construction for basically ever. It’s expensive to renovate, but we’re working on it. Deferred maintenance needs to happen (painting doors, etc.). New doors for the A&A??? That are made of wood??? Someone give us some money please. Great reactions to the new bike racks.

Academic Committee: Supposed to talk about curriculum, but they tend to talk about other stuff. Talked a lot about books, syllabi, bookstore, and library. Members will talk to their constituency and report back. Some student reps will be talking about blackboard and some issues about it.

Equity Affairs Committee and Events Committee: Haven’t met yet 🙁

Enrolment Management Committee: Students get to be on this now! Faculty are going to do guest lectures at high schools. Want to improve mental health facilities, international students, and grad transitions.

Life After King’s event: October 29th! Go to it! It’s about Jobs and Civil Service and THERE WILL BE FREE PIZZA

Open House: This Friday!

Financial Sustainability of the University is kind of a thing: BoG reps have been working nonstop. Many rounds of revision to produce fact sheet. You can email and get all the info. Trying to plan places/times to have discussions about this stuff.

Report of the Vice-President (Financial)

Congrats new councillors! So rad to have so many women. Let’s always recognize this.

Attended Wardroom meeting: Talked about putting up women on the walls.

Day of Action Planning Meeting: talked about Face of the Future: where to get signatures? Where to go? Next meeting is October 23rd. Go to it.

Finance Committee: Lots of it this week (3 meetings this week!) Orientation session, huge number of funding requests, excited to work with all these people.

Society Training: Successful. Went over a sample funding request, printing, photocopying, TWAK, etc etc. Will work on making sure society is up to date.

Galley Taxes: Been working on this. KSU gave the Galley $83 000 as start-up. Trying to figure out how to organize the money they have and to clarify the tax situation.

Councillor training: Some on Friday (which was great), more next week.

Insurance: “we are insured, but we will be REALLY insured”

Chorus: Been working on a funding request. A lot of issues have come up. Need to figure out how they can be a part of campus life while addressing things like student fees paid to be in the chorus, amounts of money that they need to put on concerts, etc.

11:04am: Report of the Vice President (External)

Welcome new people! She is also new! Changeovers are happening. (Eleanor’s phone rings beautifully)

Solidarity and External Stuff: Working with PRIDE to end the blood ban. Sisters in Spirt Vigil for missing and murdered aboriginal women: powerful. Environmental racism: a hidden issue, dump sites often have unknown places.

Day of Action: Advocating for student issues. Get lots of students and more into the streets- show the government there are a ton of people behind us.

Anti-Oppression training: focused on white privilege, some King’s students went!

It’s proposed that we will omnibus action items 5.1-5.6 and 5.8. It passes!

King’s/Dalhousie Swing Dance Society (involved in the bustling swing community in Halifax), PRIDE Society (puts on Rocky Horror on Halloween! Safe space for LGBTQAP+ folks, queer rights and activism), Le Salon (New!-no, just kidding, not new, apparently, but this is the first year they are ratifying- Will be speaking conversational french each week. Very fun.) King’s Image Photography Society (Do all kinds of cool stuff. Develop film or look at developed film. Also looking at using the NSCAD darkroom), King’s Wordsmiths (Publish The Octopus, meet twice a week, do creative writing. Bring pieces you’ve written and get feedback on them!), St. Andrew’s Mission (Very old society, help students find volunteer opportunities, social justice, did not ratify last year): these all want to be ratified societies. It passes! They did it! So proud.

5.7: Equity affairs committee: here to create and uphold policy about discrimination and oppression on campus. Proactive in making the policies, and then will only meet when an issue is raised. This year, three groups have asked for spots: NSPIRG, CSS, and King’s Christian Fellowship.

Discussion:

Maybe the Christian Fellowship shouldn’t be here? Would religious bias be an issue, perhaps?

How is it different from the University’s Equity Committee?

Can we grant the seats later? Should they be decided upon now?

Trying to figure out how to run this- it would be iffy for a person with so much privilege to be in a leadership position.

Have to keep in mind that there is a structure within the college. This committee could take measures such as de-ratifying a society or working with them. Complaints would come to the Union. If it was in the context of individuals unrelated to our bodies, it would be moved to the university. Anything to do with an individual student goes to the University.

Was it made known to societies that they could petition for this? Yes, basically.

It is moved and seconded to remove the King’s Christian Fellowship from this action item.

More discussion: They would be the only religious group on the committee. What would our constituency want? Having only one religion represented may deter certain groups from speaking to the equity committee.

It is said that we do not have a group on campus that is ratified that speaks directly to race or ableism. PRIDE didn’t solicit a spot. This religious group did ask for a spot. Having a conversation about marginalization on campus important. Three people speak against the amendment. It is inequitable to not give representation to the Christian Fellowship- one of the things the Equity Committee is supposed to talk about is religion. Who is better to know about religious issues than a religious society? – it is noted that they would not represent religious students, but christian students.

Religions are based in preexisting values. Talking about equity from a point of view of a religious background may be problematic.

Maybe we should be talking about this as a bigger issue, rather than just trying to figure out this amendment. Can’t vote something down based on “bad vibes”

A 5 minute recess is proposed. A tie! (Which means we do not have a recess)

Trying to figure out how to postpone things, because there are some non-councillor folks here to talk about financial proposals, and it would be nice if they could leave.

Movement to lay the main motion on the table- we can pick it up at any time! Seconded. It passes! Motion is laid on the table.

11:58am: It is moved and seconded to do some stuff out of order (again, so that those lovely people can leave!)

Travel Bursary Requests!

Will Musgrave requests $100 to go to a physics conference. This motion is recommended to be approved by the Finance Committee. Will has done cool research in stuff we don’t understand. Will is now speaking about the money matters. He has a sweet outline of how much everything costs. Overall $920 is needed. He has applied for $500 from the Dal Science Society. It has been difficult to apply for funding as a King’s student. He wants to share knowledge with other King’s students. The motion passes! He’s in the money. $$$$$$$$$

Simon Meynell is applying for the same exact thing to go to the exact same thing. He wrote an amazing paper about more things we don’t understand, but we’re sure it is very interesting. Wants to learn and share his research. He has also asked for $500 from Dal Science. He has nothing to add. He has cool glasses. It passes! Dolla dolla bill, y’all.

12:07pm: Other Funding Requests!

The EMSS is asking for $2926.27 in non-contingent funding for socials, printing Babel, and a conference. This is super exciting. The society is growing, which is very cool. Asking for money for a Halloween social, the conference of the Early Modern, printing Babel from last year (it was so popular that they are reprinting it. How cool) and this year, plus another social. They submitted a really nice funding request (can confirm, as I am on finance committee). Finance Committee strongly approves this request. A person from EMSS (I am fairly certain they are the president) says they are super happy to be here and that they are grateful the EMSS runs on funds from KSU. Participation and interest in the Society is growing. Voting!! It passes! SO MUCH MONEY.

12:38pm: We are back! Meeting is called to order. There were no fries at sodexo, but the pasta was A+.

We are electing someone to the Galley Board of Directors.

Niki Foley is nominated! She is a day student here at King’s, which is cool because the Galley is important to day students. She also loves King’s community and wants to have more of a voice and contribute to fostering community. Everyone is in favour! Congrats!

Now we are electing 3 people to the equity committee.

Emma Kenney is nominated: she is the campus safety officer. She is aware of her place in terms of privilege, runs feminist collective, combats oppression, professional and awesome.

Katie Douglas is nominated: she is a member of PRIDE and the feminist collective, and is super cool.

Aidan McNally self-nominates: interested in the safe space we create, but it is an evolving process to keep this happening. Member of feminist collective.

It is proposed that these three names fill the blanks. It passes! We have an awesome equity committee!

Levies: we don’t have any formal policies. Need to make a report to decide who pays levies, which levied societies get $$. Emily will chair a task force to figure this stuff out. It passes!

Now we’re talking about the Galley. Emily and The galley want to designate the money given to The Galley in 2012 by the KSU as a capital grant. This would reflect the fact that the Galley lost money in 2012 and 2013, so they wouldn’t have to pay taxes for these years. We are so in favour. It passes.

The KTS wants some money to do ladder training. It’s super important for insurance and stuff. Eleven people would be trained. Ladder training needs to be renewed every year. Apparently this in a new thing: trying to make sure we’re super covered by insurance. It wasn’t a concern of the University for 90 years. Approved!

The Arts Abstract wants $49.50 to do the “shots on a string” project for camera film and developing costs. This project was successful last year, so they would be stoked to do it again. It passes! Jacob abstains.

Dance collective requests money for pole dancing workshop! So fun. So sexy. They want this money in case they don’t get a full turnout (which they probably won’t). It passes! Aidan abstains.

King’s Poetry Society is requesting money for car rentals to get to the Gaspereau Press Open house (which I am told is called Wayzgoose). Apparently this would be a cool thing to do. It passes!

Pizza Appreciation Society requests $50 for a meeting. The Finance committee doesn’t approve this, because the costs were not specific, as was a requirement. James speaks to this , saying that the purpose of the PAS is to go to the market and get seasonal ingredients, having the necessity of exact numbers limits their ability. Emily responds saying that it would be irresponsible of Finance Committee to approve a funding request based on trust. James says that it is disrespectful to say that no planning went in. Emily says that when a funding request comes in that cannot be immediately approved, she emails the contact and offers to sit down with them to sort it out. She says it is disrespectful to disregard finance committee’s procedures. Anika says it’s important to have this super cool society about local, sustainable food but it’s also important to have our team’s procedures and interests in mind. Eleanor says the spirit behind PAS is to have chilled out pizza and community. Emily says there is no background to this society. This is a lot of money to request for one meeting of a new society- foreign film requests $20-25 per meeting. It’s not transparent and accountable to approve this. Jess says the way this society was put forward was to take what they have and to make pizza with it. Aidan says this isn’t about not trusting members of PAS, but about going through proper procedure. We can approve this in the future, probably. Emily says she wants to have and fund a pizza society, but she asks that there is planning going into society meetings, particularly when they require money.

It is asked whether we can figure out how to help first time meetings of societies. Can we do receipts after the fact, because the society’s structure is not one that works well with before-hand structure? Haritha says we aren’t going to talk about structural changes to the society right now. Jacob says that they can at least get an idea of ingredients, give examples. Finance committee has already said they do not approve this, and we should keep that in mind.